Khunatorn - stock.adobe.com

Feature

What the 2026 Global Risks Report means for CIOs

Rising AI, cyber, and geopolitical risks are no longer abstract—CIOs must lead in building resilient, adaptable enterprise technology.

Sean Michael Kerner
By
Published: 10 Feb 2026

Executive Summary

  • Global risk is now an IT risk. The WEF Global Risks Report 2026 shows geoeconomic fragmentation, AI governance gaps and cyber threats directly impacting infrastructure, data, and operations.
  • Resilience must replace efficiency as the default goal. CIOs need adaptable architectures, diversified vendors and governance-ready AI to withstand volatility and disruption.
  • CIOs must lead enterprise risk strategy. Translating systemic global risks into board-level decisions on technology, investment and resilience is now a core CIO responsibility.

A core element of the World Economic Forum (WEF) held at the start of each year is the release of the group's Global Risks Report.

The WEF's Global Risks Report 2026 was released on Jan. 8, 2026, with a sharply negative outlook. Fifty percent of surveyed leaders and experts expect the world to be turbulent or stormy over the next two years, rising to 57% over the next 10 years, while only 1% expect a calm outlook in either time frame. In the near term, geoeconomic confrontation ranks as the most severe risk, alongside misinformation and disinformation, societal polarization and cyber insecurity.

The report also reveals a landscape where risks no longer arrive in isolation. Geoeconomic fragmentation, AI governance gaps, economic volatility, and cyber threats compound and amplify each other, creating systemic exposure that directly impacts technology infrastructure.

In this context, CIOs are central to enterprise risk strategy because technology underpins virtually every critical function, including operations, partners, data flows and customer trust. The core message: global risk is no longer abstract; it directly impacts IT availability, supply chains, data integrity, and security, making digital resilience a front-line business requirement.

Geoeconomic confrontation and enterprise technology risk

The WEF report identifies geoeconomic fragmentation as a top systemic risk, and its effect on technology operations is immediate. Trade restrictions, tariffs and geopolitical tensions have transformed vendor concentration from procurement efficiency into a strategic vulnerability. The impact on cloud providers, global sourcing and IT vendors creates operational constraints that demand architectural and contractual responses from CIOs.

There are numerous areas CIOs should focus on as they consider these trends.

Address vendor concentration risk

Organizations can no longer optimize purely for cost and simplicity. Brian Jackson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, emphasizes that enterprises should focus on building resilience through replaceability. His research shows that resilience comes through modular architecture using open standards, enabling organizations to swap providers without redesigning core systems.

"We may not be able to control the dynamics around the geopolitics in the different countries where we do business, but we can at least position our organization to be as nimble as possible and ready to pivot when the business is disrupted," Jackson said.

Build resilient connectivity strategies

Redundancy becomes critical across connectivity, compute and cloud infrastructure. Jose Ortega Carrero, partner and technology advisory leader at global consulting firm Highspring, points to satellite-based connectivity as a viable backup infrastructure when traditional networks face disruption. "Fiber shouldn't be your only lifeline," he said.

Implement regional cloud strategies

Data sovereignty and regulatory divergence require a distributed architecture. 

"CIOs should adopt hybrid and multi-cloud strategies that can support geographically distributed workloads while preserving compliance with regional data sovereignty and regulatory mandates," commented Chris Howard, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner.

Prioritize adaptability over efficiency

Infrastructure decisions must account for rapid environmental changes. Thimaya Subaiya, executive vice president of operations at Cisco, said, "The most critical shift CIOs need to make is moving beyond efficiency optimization to building infrastructure designed for adaptability."

Build strategic flexibility

With the fast pace of change bringing potential risk, Keith Golden, CIO at global consulting agency RGP, suggests that his fellow CIOs optimize for optionality, not just efficiency.

"We are thinking twice before we lock into any single vendor, cloud or geography," Golden said. "Further, resilience is no longer just a defensive mindset. It means we consider and budget for flexibility, not just cost reduction."

AI – strategic asset and risk multiplier

Given the broader macroeconomic context outlined in the WEF report, AI can be a strategic asset. It also introduces risks that could multiply if not properly managed. These trends suggest that CIOs should focus on the following areas:

AI governance frameworks

Organizations can't wait for regulations to catch up. Subaiya argued that governance must be part of the foundation, not just an afterthought. In his view, governance must be embedded into strategy and infrastructure immediately.

Simply saying an organization needs AI governance isn't enough. According to Jackson, governance must evaluate AI risks holistically to ensure:

  • Validity and reliability.
  • Safety and data privacy.
  • Explainability and transparency.
  • Fairness and accountability.

Figuring out how to do that can often start by using established frameworks from NIST and ISO that can be used as starting points for AI governance.

Model transparency, monitoring and accountability

Part of managing risk to ensure AI is an asset rather than a risk multiplier is the need for model transparency, monitoring and accountability.

Jackson emphasized that transparency and explainability must be core principles of any AI deployment, ensuring organizations can explain how models make decisions. Going a step further, it's critical to understand where data and models come from. Howard stressed the need for data provenance and metadata management to track where data comes from, how it's transformed and how AI systems use it. This supports both regulatory compliance and defense against data poisoning attacks.

Continuous monitoring helps ensure models operate as intended without introducing additional risk. Howard pointed to Trust, Risk and Security Management (TRiSM) frameworks that use guardian agents to monitor AI systems continuously and enforce policies proactively.

Aligning AI investment with measurable business value

CIOs need to demonstrate that good governance accelerates AI deployment. The right processes manage risk while ensuring AI investments deliver measurable results that justify continued board support.

"AI governance isn't about slowing innovation," Golden said. "It's about enabling it safely and with clear data boundaries and human oversight."

Economic volatility and technology decision-making

Inflation, slowdown and financial market uncertainty create pressure to do more with fewer resources. CIOs risk both over-optimization, which limits flexibility, and underinvestment, which leaves the organization exposed.

With those trends in mind, CIOs should consider the following tactics.

Cost transparency and tech rationalization: Economic uncertainty demands a clear-eyed assessment of technology spending. Jackson said CIOs should focus on cutting maintenance, technical debt and other costs that don't translate into business value.

Flexible, scalable infrastructure: Infrastructure choices can't assume stability in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty.

"When the external environment is unpredictable, internal operations must remain stable, resilient and secure," Subaiya said.

Data-driven forecasting and scenario modeling: Annual planning cycles can't keep pace with volatility. Howard's research shows CIOs using dynamic scenario planning and off-cycle reviews to adjust spending as market conditions shift.

Cyber, misinformation and trust risks

The WEF report emphasizes the interconnected, systemic risks posed by expanding cyber threats and the erosion of digital trust through misinformation and deepfakes. These threats affect brand reputation, employee awareness and institutional credibility.

Cyber resilience, not just prevention: The threat landscape has fundamentally changed. Organizations need ecosystem approaches that combine identity security, behavioral analytics, threat detection and automated response.

"No one product can outpace the threat; the bundle can," Ortega Carrero said.

Identity, data integrity, and incident response: The macroeconomic environment has also led to significant risks from deepfakes and misinformation. 

Howard recommends several strategic priorities:

  • Establish immune systems against disinformation using narrative intelligence, behavioral analytics and AI-driven content verification.
  • Integrate business impact analysis with cyber resilience to protect critical assets.
  • Establish TrustOps for cross-functional governance.
  • Deploy data provenance systems to track data origin and defend against data poisoning attacks.

Cross-functional coordination with legal, HR and communications: Modern threats require a unified organizational response. Ortega Carrero emphasizes that communications, HR, legal and security teams must work from shared playbooks and run cross-functional simulations.

"The next major incident may not be a server outage, but it may be a falsified executive message circulating online," he said.

What CIOs should do now

The WEF's 2026 Global Risks Report makes clear that technology leaders can no longer treat global risks as external concerns managed by other functions. The convergence of geoeconomic fragmentation, AI governance challenges, economic constraints and cyber threats demands that CIOs lead enterprise risk conversations rather than simply support them.

This shift requires translating systemic risks into concrete board-level discussions.

"We can no longer rely on a risk posture informed by hindsight," Jackson said. "We need to be considering what risks could materialize in the future, bringing in AI tools to help us imagine the possibilities."

Questions to elevate risk discussions at the board level:

Question

Why it matters

Where are we overly dependent on a single geography or vendor?

Exposes concentration risks in cloud providers, data centers and supply chains that become failure points under geopolitical stress.

Do we have visibility into AI usage across the organization?

Organizations need data foundations to support AI systems. As Ortega Carrero asks: "How can the budget reflect building the right data foundations to enable these platforms?"

Are our risk scenarios aligned with real-world volatility?

Static planning cycles miss emerging threats. Organizations must model future risks proactively.

Are we ready if an enterprise-level incident happens tomorrow?

Decision rights and communications must work frictionlessly under pressure.

Capabilities to prioritize in 2026:

  • Enterprise-ready data foundations. Breaking down silos, establishing stewardship and building scalable pipelines. Organizations deploying AI on fragmented data fail.
  • AI-enabling infrastructure. Secure, scalable environments for model training, orchestration and deployment are now as fundamental as traditional networking or storage.
  • Modernized resilience capabilities. Business continuity planning, redundancy and disaster recovery that reflect current geopolitical realities rather than outdated stability assumptions.

For CIOs, the operational imperative is clear: prepare for tomorrow's uncertainty with today's operational excellence.

"Where are manual processes and fragmented systems slowing us down? Those friction points are the first places where failures surface," Subaiya said. "The priority should be agentic automation that simplifies workflows. That is how you build an organization that can respond faster to whatever comes next."

Sean Michael Kerner is an IT consultant, technology enthusiast and tinkerer. He has pulled Token Ring, configured NetWare and been known to compile his own Linux kernel. He consults with industry and media organizations on technology issues.

Dig Deeper on CIO strategy